The playoffs had eight teams. Fnatic, Team EnVyUs, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Virtus.pro, Natus Vincere, PENTA Sports, and Team SoloMid were returning Legends from the last major. Keyd Stars was the only new Legends and became the first South American team to play in a major and become a Legend. HellRaisers had its Legend spot taken away after losing to Counter Logic Gaming and Keyd Stars in the group stage. The grand finals would play out to be one of CS:GO's finest sets of 2015 between the two legendary Swedish teams. Fnatic defeated PENTA Sports and Virtus.pro while Ninjas in Pyjamas defeated Team SoloMid and Team EnVyUs on their way to the grand finals. Fnatic ousted Ninjas in Pyjamas 2-1 in the finals.[1] Fnatic was the first team to have more than one major title in its hand and would be the only team to do so until MIBR (which was Keyd Stars at this tournament) when the Brazilian team won MLG Columbus 2016 and ESL One Cologne 2016

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Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is a multiplayerfirst-person shooter video game developed by Hidden Path Entertainment and Balbe Corporation. It is the fourth game in the Counter-Strike series. In competitive play, the game pits two teams against each other: the Terrorists and the Counter-Terrorists. Both sides are tasked with eliminating the other while also completing separate objectives. The Terrorists must either plant a bomb or kill the entire Counter-Terrorist team, while the Counter-Terrorists must either prevent the bomb from being planted by killing the entire Terrorist team or defusing the bomb. In addition, the counter-terrorists can run down the clock before the terrorist can plant the bomb or kill the entire counter-terrorist team; if terrorists do run out of time (each round has one minute and forty-five seconds), the terrorists who remain alive by the end of the round earn no round bonus money. At the end of each round, players are rewarded based on their individual performance with in-game currency to spend on more powerful weapons in subsequent rounds. Winning rounds results in more money than losing, and completing objectives such as killing enemy players gives cash bonuses. However, the more consecutive rounds a team loses, the more money the losing team earns, with the loss bonus capping after five rounds; once that team wins a round, the loss round bonus resets to the minimum amount each player could earn after a round.

There are six categories of purchasable categories, five being weapons – rifles, sub-machine guns (SMGs), heavy, pistols, and grenades – and the sixth being utilities, which includes armor and a taser. All guns have different states and all grenade types have different in-game effects. The highly explosive grenade deals damage in a small radius, the smoke grenade places a smoke screen for fifteen seconds so that nobody can see through the placed smoke, the decoy grenade emulates the player's primary gun, the flashbang temporarily blinds players who look at it explode, and the Molotov cocktail and Incendiary Grenade set a small radius of the map on fire for seven seconds.[2] Alongside all of these weapons, the Zeus x27, a taser, can also be purchased. For most professional players, the main choice of weapons are two rifles – the AK-47 for Terrorists and the M4A4 or the M4A1-S for the Counter-Terrorists – and the AWP. However, if limited on money, players tend to choose pistols – such as the Desert Eagle, CZ-75 Auto, and the P250 – the UMP-45 – which is considered to be simply a weaker M4A4 or AK47 despite being an SMG – and the SSG 08 – which is a much inferior AWP. If players know the opposing team has a weaker inventory, then players may choose to use lesser weaponry such as the MAC-10 or the MP-9 as the SMGs give twice as much money as rifles with each kill and give players more money going into further rounds. Heavy weapons are rarely used, with the MAG-7 being the most used, as players need to be very close range in order to get an accurate shot. The Kevlar is an important part of CS:GO as having armor allows a player to have more accurate aim when while getting hit by bullets and decreases the amount of damage taken. A helmet can also be bought; the helmet does not allow certain weapons to give a one shot, one kill potential, like the M4A4. Counter-Terrorists can also buy a defuse kit, which decreases the amount of time to defuse the bomb from ten seconds to five, which saves a lot of time as the bomb explodes forty seconds after the Terrorists planted the bomb.

In the game, there are two bombsites where Terrorists can plant the bomb. Counter-Terrorist must defend the bombsites from the Terrorists. Each half starts with a pistol round, in which players can only buy utility, grenades, or pistols. Most teams tend to have three or four players buy Kevlar armor and one or two players who buy grenades and/or a defuse kit; on the Terrorist side, a player sometimes buys an upgraded pistol and gives that pistol to a teammate who as Kevlar in order to give the Terrorists a better chance to win the round, as the default Terrorists pistol, the Glock is inferior the default Counter-Terrorist pistol, the USP-S. Most teams tend to go for a force buy in the second round if they lose the pistol round; a force buy is in which a team uses up its money despite having lesser weaponry than the other team in an attempt to win the round. Other teams go for a save or economy round, in which the teams intentionally do not buy many weapons or utility to have more money to buy more ideal weapons in the following round. Teams then go into a gun round, in which both teams have decent guns, but not necessarily the ideal round, as one team may have a player who has a less than ideal gun or the team does not have many grenades. Each half consists of fifteen rounds and a regular game has a maximum of thirty rounds. The first team to reach sixteen rounds wins the game. If teams are tied at fifteen, the games goes to overtime, in which each overtime is a best of six rounds, making each half three rounds. If teams are still tied at the end of overtime, the game will go on to another overtime until a winner is decided.

The defending champion was Team LDLC.com, whose players were now with Team EnVyUs. Before the event, no team had won more than one major.

The top eight teams of the DreamHack Winter 2014 received direct invitations to Katowice. In addition, eight other teams emerged from the offline qualifiers (known as "Challengers").

Teams will be split up into four groups. All group matches are best of 1. The highest seed will play the lowest seed in each group and the second and third seeds will play against each other. The winner of those two matches will play to determine which team moves on to the Playoffs; the loser of that match will play another match against the winner of the two losing teams. The loser of the lower match is eliminated from the tournament. The last two teams will play each other and the winner of that match moves on to the playoffs.

The playoffs bracket consists of eight teams, two from each group. All of these matches are a best of three, single elimination format. Teams advance in the bracket until a winner is decided.

There were seven maps to choose from. In the group stage, both teams can delete two maps. From the remaining three maps, the map is randomly selected, which is played in the end. In the playoffs, each team will first remove one map. Then, each side chooses a map, which will be played in the first two matches. If the series were to go to a third map, that map is randomly selected among the three remaining maps.

A total of four European teams, one Commonwealth of Independent States team, one Polish team, and one North American team qualified for the offline qualifier. In addition, another spot was granted to a European team in a last chance qualifier.

Two qualifiers in Europe were held. In both European qualifiers, 64 teams played in a single elimination bracket. Two teams from the first qualifier and three teams from the second moved on to the main qualifier.

The teams were separated into two groups of 8. The teams played in a double-elimination, best of one bracket. Four teams from each group, two from the winner's bracket and two from the loser's bracket, move on to the major.

1Four of the five players from Team iBUYPOWER were banned by Valve for their parts in the North American match fixing scandal. In a game with NetCodeGuides.com, the players intentionally threw a game.[3] CSGO personality and journalist Richard Lewis exposed the scandal that in exchange of a NetCodeGuides.com win, iBUYPOWER players would receive skins. Duc "cud" Pham, Derek "dboorN" Boorn, and Casey "caseyfoster" Foster, authority figures of NetCodeGuides.com, were banned by Valve. In addition, Sam "DaZeD" Marine, Keven "AZK" Larivière, Joshua "steel" Nissan, and Braxton "swag" Pierce were banned from all Valve-sponsored events.[4] The remaining member of iBUYPOWER, Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham, was not banned since he was the only player who did not receive anything, thus making evidence against him inconclusive. The bans were officially made permanent on January 5, 2016.[5] Richard Lewis later wrote an open letter to Valve, claiming the bans were too harsh.[6]

2Team WinneR was found to be guilty of match fixing, so the team was disqualified. 3DMAX took the vacant spot. Players of ESC Gaming were also accused of match fixing, but they were cleared of any wrongdoing.

3The Polish roster of ESC Gaming was picked up by Gamers2. ESC Gaming would go on ti pick up a Danish roster.[7][8]

Yegor "markeloff" Markelov and Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev depart from HellRaisers. s1mple was replaced by Dauren "AdreN" Kystaubayev. Later, HellRaisers announces the signing of Egor "flamie" Vasilyev to fill up the remaining spot on the roster.[9][10]

PENTA Sports adds Tobias "Troubley" Tabbert from mousesports and Johannes "nex" Maget from Planetkey Dynamics to its roster. Robin "r0bs3n" Stephan and Felix "fel1x" Zech were out of the roster.[11][12]

Team Dignitas releases Henrik "FeTiSh" Christensen and signs Finn "karrigan" Andersen as the in game leader.[14] Roughly two months later, the roster is acquired by Team SoloMid.[15]

The players of NetCodeGuides.com disbands from its organization.[16] Counter Logic Gaming then signs four of the five players (Josh "jdm64" Marzano was the exception) and Peter "ptr" Gurney to its roster.[17]

Flipsid3 Tactics releases its Swedish and Bosnian roster and signs the roster of dAT Team. s1mple later left the team and the team signs Vadim "DavCost" Vasilyev.[18]

Cloud9 was alleged to have been on Adderall during the duration of the tournament. Kory "SEMPHIS" Friesen was released by Cloud9 about a month after the Katowice 2015 major before being picked up by Nihilum Gaming. In an interview with the well-known Counter-Strike commentator and analyst Mohan "launders" Govindasamy, SEMPHIS admitted that his whole team was on Adderall while playing.[19] SEMPHIS said to Launders

The ESL [communications] were kinda funny, in my opinion. I don't even care. We were all on Adderall. Like, I don't even give a fuck. Like, it was pretty obvious if you listened to the [communications].[20]

After the interview went viral in the Counter-Strike community, tournament organizers declared their intention to combat the use of PEDs in eSports. ESL also announced that it would partner with the National Anti Doping Association, which would mean random drug tests would be the norm. Cloud9's owner Jack Etienne dismissed SEMPHIS's allegations and did not condone the use of PEDs.

Natus Vincere (Na'Vi) came into Katowice 2015 after placing third at DreamHack Winter 2014, which was its best placing at a major ever. FlipSid3 Tactics took a difficult road to the major, as it barely scraped past Team Liquid and lost to LGB eSports before finally defeating the Russian-based team PiTER to qualify for the major. This major would start a streak for the Andrey "B1ad3" Gorodenskiy and his team of never missing a major. Historically, Na'Vi had a five to two head-to-head record over its CIS rivals.

The first game of the major started off on Mirage and it did not take very long. Lead by Danylo "Zeus" Teslenko and star AWPer Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács, Na'Vi was able to take a 6-0 lead before FlipSid3 took a round. However, that would be all the success FlipSid3 would get as Sergey "starix" Ischuk and his team would take the remaining rounds. FlipSid3 took the second half pistol round that included a Vladyslav "bondik" Nechyporchuk 1 vs. 2 clutch. However, a force buy from Na'Vi and a clean execute to the A bombsite with Zeus's three kills allowed Na'Vi to get to match point quickly. A desperate final from FlipSid3 started off with Na'Vi heading to the A bombsite. starix started off with a kill onto bondik, but Georgi "WorldEdit" Yaskin traded him out with a desert eagle headshot. Denis "seized" Kostin took down WorldEdit and Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev followed up onto Vadim "DavCost" Vasilyev in the middle area. B1ad3 was able to catch Zeus off-guard and Yegor "markeloff" Markelov took down GuardiaN to even the playing field, but Na'Vi still had much more firepower. seized took down markeloff through a box and planted the bomb. B1ad3 tried to clutch, but a flashbang from seized aided Edward to finalizing the score at 16-2. Zeus had 21 kills and GuardiaN had 19 in the win. bondik put in work for his team with 15 kills, but a poor performance from the rest of the team fell much short.

Fnatic came back from the previous major as the most controversial team after the infamous boost against Team LDLC.com. After DreamHack officials decided to replay the map due to LDLC also using a similar boost, Fnatic forfeited the match and the game was handed to LDLC, which went on to win the major. Vox Eminor surprised everyone at the major qualifier after defeating 3DMAX and upsetting Team Dignitas. Historically, the two teams only met once, with Fnatic easily winning a best of three in late 2013.

The teams struck to Inferno, a famous Fnatic map. This match was similar to the other Group A match, as Fnatic dominated. Vox did start off strong as it won the pistol round, but in pure Fnatic style, the Swedes won a force buy in the second round. Vox kept it close and made it 5-2 after Azad "topguN" Orami took two quick kills while heading to the B bombsite. In the next round, Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer started with a kill onto topguN about thirty seconds into the round. Fnatic's captain Markus "pronax" Wallsten took out Aaron "AZR" Ward; Luke "Havoc" Paton tried to make a play, but olofmeister's aim proved to be superior. Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill finally had something going with a kill onto Robin "flusha" Rönnquist, but pronax traded immediately. Justin "jks" Savage dropped down to take down pronax from the apartments area on the map, which leads to the A bombsite. jks followed up onto olofmeister, but Jesper "JW" Wecksell was waiting while Freddy "KRIMZ" Johansson was on the flank, and Fnatic reset Vox's economy. Vox would take a round in the second half, but that proved to be irrelevant as Fnatic struck back to take the match at 16-3. JW headed the scoreboard with 20 kills. topguN and AZR had 11 kills each for the Australians, but the team had no success against the Swedish powerhouse.

Both teams were thrashed in their opening matches, having a combined round differential of -27. FlipSid3 was expected to win this match based on having much more experience as the two teams had never met before.

The map was chosen to be Cache, with Vox starting on the counter-terrorist side. That might have proven to be a mistake for the Ukrainians as Vox dominated with an 8-0 start before FlipSid3 finally put one up on the board. In the next round, Havoc started with an AWP kill onto DavCost in the B bombsite and SPUNJ took down bondik in the middle area. AZR popped out to middle to take down B1ad3 before being taken down by WorldEdit. SPUNJ headed back to the B bombsite and took down markeloff in the squeaky area of the map, which is one of three entrances to the A bombsite. WorldEdit rushed up to trade, but he was still left in a 1 vs. 3. WorldEdit found another kill onto topguN in the A bombsite from the middle area. With time waning down, WorldEdit creeped up to the A bombsite to plant the bomb, but Havoc got the backstab and gave Vox the round. FlipSid3 found just one more round in the entire game and Vox cruised to an easy win. topguN and Havoc had 21 kills each to lead Vox. DavCost was the only player for FlipSid3 to get into double digit kills with 13. Vox moved on to face the loser of Na'Vi and Fnatic and FlipSid3 was eliminated.

A strongly anticipated matchup between the best team from Europe and the best team from the CIS region was expected to be close. Both teams dominated their opening matches. Historically, Fnatic had a 12-6 record over Natus Vincere and Na'Vi had never won anything more than a best of one against Fnatic. However, this winners' match was a best of one to the favor of Na'Vi.

The two giants went to Cobblestone, a map both teams are comfortable on. Things looked strong for Na'Vi on the pistol round as seized took down flusha in the middle area while the other Fnatic players were prepared to hop into the B bombsite. GuardiaN then took down KRiMZ in the drop area of the map, which leads to both the B bombsite and the connector area that connects the two bombsites. Zeus won a fight with JW while olofmesiter took down starix with a strong, upgraded pistol, the Tec-9. Edward took down pronax, leaving olofmeister in a 1 vs. 4. However, the man that would soon be voted best player of 2015 found two quick kills onto Edward and GuardiaN. With ten seconds left in the round, olofmeister found a favorable fight with seized and won it and then finished off Zeus, who had seven health points, to just about clutch the round in one of the most memorable pistol clutches in CS:GO history. It would prove to be a crucial round as Na'Vi only obtained two rounds in the first half. The second half was better for the CIS team, but Fnatic's defense held strong and closed out the map 16-7. olofmeister went big with 27 kills and KRiMZ took in 20 for himself. seized had 22 kills, but Na'Vi's star GuardiaN only came out with 10. Fnatic took first seed in the group and Na'Vi went on to face Vox Eminor.

Natus Vincere was fully expected to win this match, but after Na'Vi was dominated by Fnatic and Vox Eminor pulled off an upset in big fashion over FlipSid3 Tactics. These two teams had never faced off in the past.

The teams went to Inferno. Na'Vi took a commanding 8-0 lead before Vox took one. However, that would be all the success in the half for Vox as Na'Vi ended the half with a 14-1 lead. Vox took a must win pistol round and looked to get at least four rounds. In round seventeen, Na'Vi bought as much as it could with upgraded pistols and kevlar and went up to middle to the A bombsite. GuardiaN lead the way with a quick headshot onto Havoc. AZR was able to trade out Edward, but SPUNJ fell to starix and AZR eventually fell to GuardiaN and Na'Vi planted the bomb. GuardiaN found another headshot onto topguN. jks was able to kill Zeus, but a fourth headshot from GuardiaN won Na'Vi the round. Vox took the next round, but another force buy from Na'Vi won the team the match and a Legends spot. GuardiaN lead the way with 22 kills and seized was close by with 21. AZR had 11 kills, but Vox was throttled by the CIS team. Natus Vincere moved on to the playoffs and Vox Eminor was eliminated.

Two French powerhouses kicked off Group B and the fight to prove who was France's best was a close one. EnVyUs chose to start on the counter-terrorist side and Titan decided to hit the A bombsite quickly and within fifteen seconds of the start of the round, Mathieu "Maniac" Quiquerez found a very quick headshot onto Richard "shox" Papillon. The fight continued as Titan pushed near the A bombsite. Kevin "Ex6TenZ" Droolans tried to create a distraction by jumping quickly into the connector area, but Edouard "SmithZz" Dubourdeaux was there to stop him. Nathan "NBK-" Schmitt killed Maniac, but Dan "apEX" Madesclaire was able to find a trade kill onto SmithZz. Cédric "RpK" Guipouy killed NBK- to give Titan the advantage. Vincent "Happy" Cervoni Schopenhauer, who was hiding in the corner of the A bombsite all this time, finally revealed his position when apEX was hunting down Fabien "kioShiMa" Fiey and killed him. Happy then swung out and found a quick headshot onto kennyS and then took down RpK to give EnVyUs the pistol round. However, the next round, Titan would pick win the force buy to even up the score and then the score would reach 2-2 until EnVyUs took a 6-2 lead and then reset Titan's economy at 7-3 and looked to cruise to an easy half as Titan was forced to save for a round. In the eleventh round, all Titan had were the four pistols surround an AK-47 that RpK saved from the last round. Despite this, apEX started the round with a headshot onto Happy with the only upgraded pistol on Titan's side. shox tried to chase him down, but two missed shots with the AWP gave apEX time to punish and suddenly Titan had a two-man advantage. kennyS took the dropped AWP – the weapon kennyS was so infamous for that Valve Corporation had to nerf the gun solely because of kennyS's dominance with that gun – and caught out a jumping NBK- and Titan went to the B bombsite. SmithZz was able to find two players, but kennyS was there to trade. kioShiMa flashed himself into the site and punished a missed shot from kennyS but the bomb was just planted. kioShiMa made it close, but RpK secured the round. The half ended with EnVyUs leading 9-6. EnVyUs won the pistol round and the two anti-economy rounds to go up 12-6, but six consecutive rounds from Titan, including a Maniac 1 vs 2 clutch, put the game back into a tie. Titan then got to fourteen rounds and was two rounds away from taking the map. However, three unanswered from EnVyUs allowed the team to reach map point first at 15-14. In the thirtieth round, both teams had the guns they wanted. EnVyUs made a fast push to the A bombsite and the teams traded one for one. kennyS missed two close range shots, allowing SmithZz to punish. shox won a fight against Maniac and RpK won his fight against Happy as EnVyUs planted the bomb. SmithZz took down RpK and Ex6TenZ found shox. Ex6Tenz ran to the bombsite to try to defuse the bomb, but NBK- found the kill and EnVyUs took the map. Maniac lead his team with 24 kills, but Happy and NBK- had 28 kills each in the win.

PENTA was the favorite to win this match, but LGB came out aggressive. LGB took a 3-0 lead before PENTA took one. In the fifth round, LGB was at a disadvantage as one of its players only had a pistol. With about thirty seconds left in the round, PENTA headed to the A bombsite. Joakim "jkaem" Myrbostad found a headshot onto Denis "denis" Howell, but he was traded out by Tobias "Troubley" Tabbert. Pål "Polly" Kammen was able to take down Timo "Spiidi" Richter and Troubley before finally being traded by Johannes "nex" Maget. Kevin "kRYSTAL" Amend found Håvard "rain" Nygaard near the B bombsite, but Ruben "RUBINO" Villarroel was waiting with his pistol and caught nex off guard with the bomb. Morten "zEVES" Vollan caught out kRYSTAL in the middle area as LGB won the round. The game was not close afterwards as LGB cruised to a 16-3 win, lead by rain's 21 kills.

EnVyUs took the first two rounds, but LGB was able to tie the game at two. The Norwegians took the lead with a third round, but six unanswered from EnVyUs gave the French a 8-3 lead. In the twelfth round, LGB quickly headed to the B bombsite. rain took down SmithZz and then opened up the site for a bomb plant, but kioShiMa took one down from the vents area, which connects the middle area to the B bombsite. shox tried to stop the bomb from going down, but Polly was aware and took down the French star. kioShiMa tried to make another play from the vents area, but as he dropped down, jkaem killed him. NBK- tried to trade, but jkaem was too quick on the mouse and took another with him. Happy was able to take one with him, but the bomb was ticked too far and LGB took a round. The score at the half would end 9-6 in EnVyUs's favor. EnVyUs took the pistol and the following two anti-economy rounds to take a 12-6 lead before the first gun round. In the nineteenth round, RUBINO tried to push the middle area, but he was blinded by a flash, allowing kioShiMa to get a kill, but jkaem was able to trade and then find NBK- and shox before being taken down to quickly give LGB the man advantage. Happy sneaked his way near the A bombsite to take down rain, but Polly was able to trade to keep the advantage. SmithZz tricked the remaining LGB players to thinking that he was going to the B bombsite to plant the bomb, but he rotated to the A bombsite as the LGB players were pulled into the B site. He planted the bomb as LGB was heading back to the A site. Polly and zEVES stuck together as they wanted to make it hard on SmithZz, but it turned out to be the wrong decision as SmithZz lined them up and took them both down to give EnVyUs the round. LGB was able to take two rounds, but EnVyUs moved on to become Legends once again. SmithZz lead all players with 22 kills while RUBINO on LGB struggled with just 10.

Titan had a tough road so far as it needed to go up against two top ten teams. People did not write off Titan against PENTA after nearly defeating EnVyUs in the opener. Titan and PENTA were tied up early on and then PENTA went up 4-2. A Titan win put PENTA's economy in trouble, so the Germans had to save for a round. In the eighth round, denis found a very early kill onto RpK near the A bombsite. Titan decided to hit the B bombsite, but Troubley found Maniac and denis took down apEX. kennyS took down kRYSTAL but PENTA were able to clean up with ease and took a round it was not supposed to win. This would set the tone for the rest of the game as PENTA easily took down Titan, including not allowing a round while playing on the terrorist side. denis shined as he had 28 kills and Titan was sent home.

The two teams headed back to Dust II in the opener rematch. LGB had a good start at 4-1 before PENTA took a second and third round. In the eighth round, both teams had a chance to ruin one another's economy. denis found an early kill onto jkaem. kRYSTAL, after nearly forgetting to buy a gun, took down zEVES, who was quickly going up the A bombsite from the long area, but Polly and rain took two with them, but slowed their pace down and faded back to the long area, which connects the terrorist spawn to the A site. PENTA took a risk and pushed up the middle area as LGB was planting the bomb. nex took down rain and Troubley took down an aggressive RUBINO. Polly was found by nex and PENTA defused the bomb and took the round. The half remained close as PENTA only had a 8-7 lead. PENTA took a crucial pistol round as the Germans went up 11-7 and then 13-7. In the 21st round, PENTA decided to go to the A bombsite with about thirty-five seconds left. However, jkaem found two quick kills onto Troubley and nex before being downed by Spiidi. kRYSTAL found RUBINO, but LGB found two. Spiidi took down Polly and planted the bomb. Spiidi tried to take the right, but rain took him down and LGB found its first round of the second half. The game would be close as PENTA went up 15-12. In the 28th round, PENTA was in a lot of danger of getting its economy reset as it had just won a round, but LGB was not on a good buy, as it had a pistol and three inferior rifles that were playing around a Polly AWP. Polly took down kRYSTAL trying to push the A bombsite, so PENTA switched its plans to B. There, Troubley found a double kill and then denis downed jkaem. Polly did trade out denis, but LGB was still down a man. RUBINO took down Spiidi and then nex. Troubley was hiding in a smoke. Once he heard Polly defuse he peeked out and took the defuser and an unaware RUBINO to secure the win. kRYSTAL lead all players with 32 kills as PENTA moved on to the playoffs and LGB was sent packing.

Fnatic came into the tournament as the most dominant team in the field and looked to take its second major title. Meanwhile, PENTA Sports had some trouble against the relatively inexperienced Norwegians of LGB eSports, but managed to retain its Legends status as it went up against the best team in the world.

Virtus.pro was no surprise to be in the top eight as the reigning Katowice champions was back in the playoffs in front of its home crowd. However, Keyd Stars was the biggest surprise of the tournament as the Brazilians, who had barely any international experience, made the playoffs after pulling off two upsets in the group stage. Keyd Stars didn't even have enough money to go to the offline qualifier, but with the help of $4,000 from Robin "Flusha" Rönnquist, another couple thousand more from ESL, and donations from the community, FalleN's team was able to go to the big stage.

Team EnVyUs was the reigning major champion after winning DreamHack Winter 2014, but a very close match against its compatriot nearly cost the team the top spot in Group B. Natus Vincere was able to stomp through the Challengers in its group, but struggled against Fnatic; however, Na'Vi looked to do better in the rematch of the Winter 2014 semifinals.

The team that went on Counter-Strike's most legendary winning streak, winning 87 maps in a row, looked to reach its fifth straight final. Team SoloMid looked win a title after coming close several times and hoping the acquisition of its new in-game leader karrigan could be the decisive factor.

Fnatic easily took care of PENTA in a series that did not take much time. On the other hand, Virtus.pro suffered a loss to the massive underdogs of Keyd Stars on a map that VP was widely regarded to be one of the best on. However, VP made the other two maps look easy as it pleased the crowd with its plays. However, Fnatic easily had VP's number as in 28 maps, Fnatic was able to win 21 of them.

EnVyUs came into the semifinals as the team with the better record in the head-to-head at 33-17, but predictions were split right down the middle in the battle between Happy and Xizt. The rematch of the Winter 2014 finals was underway.

The matchup many were hoping for happened. Both teams were at one point considered the best team in the world and the head-to-head was virtually split right down the middle, with Fnatic having a 16-15 lead. Predictions were also controversial as Fnatic was barely favored in the match. The last map would go down as one of CS:GO's greatest as the arena was maxed out to standing room only.